1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to apparatus for extracting corks from bottles. A number of features are desirable in such an apparatus. One of the most important of these is that the corkscrew portion of the apparatus be well centered in the cork during operation, so as to ensure the removal of the entire cork, and minimizing the possibility of breaking the cork and permitting the resulting fragments to fall into the wine in the bottle. Another important consideration is that the corkscrew must be pulled in a substantially straight line along its own axis when the cork is being removed, and this axis should ordinarily be substantially aligned with that of the bottle, so as to facilitate removal. Another desirable feature in a cork extracting apparatus is the provision of means to reduce the manual force required to drive the corkscrew into the cork and/or to extract the cork from the bottle. There is also a need for such an apparatus in which it is not necessary to drive the corkscrew completely through the lower end of the cork before pulling it.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Although numerous types of cork extractors have been designed in the past, they have fallen short of adequately filling the various needs described above. More particularly, the prior art has failed to produce a simple, relatively inexpensive device which incorporates all of the aforementioned desirable features.
For example, British Pat. No. 192,503 to Joyce discloses one of the simplest types of such apparatus, merely comprising the corkscrew per se and an attached handle. The handle includes a bevelled surface for abutting the top of the bottle so that, once the screw has been driven into the cork a sufficient distance to achieve such abutment, continued rotation will cause the cork to rise on the corkscrew. This somewhat reduces the force which must be exerted to remove the cork from the bottle, and also provides some small degree of guidance during removal. However, there is no means for initially centering and aligning the corkscrew with the cork as it is driven thereinto.
Various other schemes have been devised for reducing the amount of manual force which must be exerted to remove a cork from a bottle. For example, British Pat. No. 2576 to Chinnock discloses an apparatus having a telescoping base and corkscrew portion with "snail" formations cooperative therebetween to permit the cork to be removed by a continuation of the rotary motion with which the corkscrew is driven into the cork. British Pat. Nos. 14,839 and 570,680 describe somewhat more elaborate mechansims in which rotation of a handle or the like causes the corkscrew and engaged cork to move upwardly, but without rotation, via a member mounted above the corkscrew and threaded to the rotating handle. Still other devices, exemplified by British Pat. No. 366,435, employ more or less complicated systems of levers in pulling the cork.
The above types of cork extractors suffer from several common disadvantages. They are unduly mechanically complicated, which increases their cost as well as their susceptibility to damage and failure; and they fail to provide adequate alignment and guidance of the corkscrew as it is being driven into the cork. Other prior inventors have addressed the alignment/centering/guidance problem, e.g. Campagnolo in British Pat. No. 1,188,579 and Becker in British Pat. No. 17,924. However, the devices resulting from such efforts did not adequately solve that problem and/or were as mechanically complicated, or even more so, as the other types of cork extractors discussed hereinabove. In short, the prior art devices require more stength, patience, and/or skill than is possessed by the average user.